Organic transistor-based integrated circuits for future smart life

Abstract

With the rapid development of advanced technologies in the Internet of Things era, higher requirements are needed for next-generation electronic devices. Fortunately, organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) provide an effective solution for electronic skin and flexible wearable devices due to their intrinsic features of mechanical flexibility, lightweight, simple fabrication process, and good biocompatibility. So far considerable efforts have been devoted to this research field. This article reviews recent advances in various promising and state-of-the-art OTFTs as well as related integrated circuits with the main focuses on: (I) material categories of high-mobility organic semiconductors for both individual transistors and integrated circuits; (II) effective device architectures and processing techniques for large-area fabrication; (III) important performance metrics of organic integrated circuits and realization of digital and analog devices for future smart life; (IV) applicable analytical models and design flow to accelerate the circuit design. In addition, the emerging challenges of OTFT-based integrated circuits, such as transistor uniformity and stability are also discussed, and the possible methods to solve these problems at both transistor and circuit levels are summarized.